Senegal's Sadio Mane just won the CAF African Player of the Year Award beating Egypt's Mohammed Salah and fellow compatriot Edouard Mendy to the prestigious title.
It beckons the question when last did a Nigerian win the prestigious award. Well it has now been 23 years since a Nigerian won the CAF African Player of the Year Award. As shocking as that sounds, that is the truth.
Only four Nigerian players have won the CAF African Player of the Year award, Rashidi Yekini in 1993, Emmanuel Amunike in 1994, Kanu Nwankwo in 1996, 1999 and Victor Ikpeba in 1997, the last Nigerian to win the award was then Arsenal player Kanu Nwankwo who beat Ghanaian and Bayern Munich defender Samuel Kuffour and Ivorian and Marseille striker Ibrahima Bakayoko to win it in 1999.
It was a victorious comeback for Kanu who returned to the game after surviving a heart defect to rule Africa again after his first win in 1996.
The striker won the award in 1999 thanks to his exploits in his debut year for Arsenal after joining the Premier League giants in February of that year.
The Nigerian striker was fantastic, scoring lots of goals as the Gunners challenged Manchester United in England.
It was that same year he scored a memorable hat-trick for Arsenal in their 3-2 comeback away at Chelsea.
He beat Kuffour who won the Bundesliga title with Bayern Munich in 1999 and got to the final of the Champions League where they lost to Manchester United 2-1.
Ivorian striker Bakayoko came third following his fantastic season with Marseille.
Since Kanu Nwankwo won the award in 1999, only two Nigerian players, Austin Jay Jay Okocha and John Mikel Obi have made it to the final three.
Okocha finished runners-up in 1998 behind Morocco’s Mustapha Hadji and third in 2003 and 2004 behind Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon and Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba.
Mikel was runner-up when Ivory Coasts’ Yaya Toure won the award in 2013.
Why the drought in Nigeria
The 23-year old drought of CAF African Player of the Year Award in Nigeria boils down to many factors, one being CAF's inconsistency.
Nigeria which has the highest number of professional players in Africa had just one representative in the 30 man nominees for the CAF Player of the Year Award as many as Comoros. Moses Simon who was arguably our best player in the AFCON 2021 was our representative but many felt that he was not the best representative for Nigeria to have in a major award rewarding players for their performance in the last year.
Surprisingly Napoli and Super Eagles forward Victor Osimhen was omitted from the nominees for the award, reason being that he didn't play the AFCON 2021.
For a man who scored 14 goals in the Italian Serie A last season, it didn't seem rational and fair to omit the former Lille man. In 2008, Emmanuel Adebayor won the CAF Player of the Year Award, he scored 24 Premier League goals and 3o goals in all competitions for Arsenal, arguably his best ever season. Togo failed to make it to the 2008 AFCON that year but he still won the award.
One can also say Osimhen's omission isn't all down to not qualifying for AFCON but actually the Superstar effect.
Emmanuel Adebayor was leading the line for arguably one of the best sides in world football at the time and due to his prestige/superstar effect he was able to win it. A modern day example is Algerian Riyad Mahrez, he captained the Algerian team who finished bottom of their Group E but omitting a player of the caliber of Riyad Mahrez would be almost crazy from CAF as he is a superstar for Manchester City, one of the best clubs in the world. Nigeria currently do not have those kind of superstars playing in the best clubs in the world, the best we have is Victor Osimhen currently at Napoli, which is a top club but not on the elite level.
What Needs to be Done
If Nigeria is to start having CAF Player of the Year Award winners, a lot needs to be done internally. We have lost the structure that made us produce great talents like in the 90s and we need to get it back. Nigeria has to look inward and develop its football from the grassroots and locally.
Our players must be competing in the top five leagues with top teams and featuring regularly.
Gone are the days that players make it out from the Nigeria Professional Football League(NPFL) to become superstars in Europe like Rashidi Yekini who played for Shooting Stars, Jay Jay Okocha who played for Enugu Rangers youth team and Kanu Nwankwo who played for Heartland FC, just to name a few.
Nowadays, talents waste everyday in the streets as what many scouts are interested in is just money, picking the average ones over the talented ones, killing our football in the process and we end up getting the services of rejected Europeans, which shouldn't be the case.
The two best players of this generation and arguably of all time, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came from very poor backgrounds, if they were Nigerians I don't think the world would have know them. As a nation we have failed in developing talents due to greed, and if that doesn't change, we will go another 23 years without a CAF Player of the Year Award Winner.
Abiaziem Olisa